Underlying subtext...Imagine how awesome it would have been for Obama if only Giffords had died!

President Obama is off to a good start in his handling of what the networks are now calling “The Tragedy in Tucson.” The moment of silence he asked for on Monday at 11 a.m.—resonant for older Americans of the exact hour on November 11 each year that the World War I Armistice was once observed—is an appropriate expression of what we need right now: Less Noise.

But silence will not be enough. This horrific event offers the president a chance to show leadership qualities that he’s inexplicably hidden away in some blind trust. The shootings and the resulting debate over the climate of incivility play to his strengths as a calm and rational leader. Just as Bill Clinton’s response to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombings helped him recover from his defeat in the 1994 midterms, so this episode may help Obama change—at least in the short term--the trajectory of American politics.

..Whether or not he attends the funerals for the Tucson victims, ObamaÂ’s big chance to lead will come in his State of the Union address on January 25. He can both to speak to the moment thematically and confront the substantive concerns raised by the tragedy.

Conservatives like to argue that these are isolated incidents carried out by lunatics and therefore carry no big lessons (unless the perpetrator is Muslim, in which case it’s terrorism); liberals view them as opportunities to address various social ills. Obama is in the latter category and should act accordingly. “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste,” Rahm Emanuel famously said in 2008. The same goes for a shooting spree that gravely wounds a beloved congresswoman. Congress won’t enact gun control, as it did in the wake of the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, but perhaps something positive can come from this.

Yeah, those stupid conservatives, trying to draw bigger lessons from the actions connected to and motivated by the world wide movement we are at war with. Apparently we need to learn from individual crackpots whose anger toward their target predates the emergence of the individual and groups liberals blame.

Don't forget, this is exactly the kind of thing some liberals were saying Obama was going to need to rebound politically.

It's all so ghoulish and dishonest.

Here's my modest proposal, if conservatives are responsible for the attack on Giffords then from this moment forward I am blaming liberals and every elected Democrat for every sexual attack in this country. When conservatives say we want to tone down the hyper-sexualization of society, especially children, we are called prudes who want to legislate what happens in people's bedrooms. Well, Democrats by your own logic you know own responsibility for every rape and sex crime in this country.

Added: Aside from the death and injuries, the worst part of this story is how the left is dragging the right into their swamp mentality. All over righty blogs on Saturday the first reactions I was were calls for prayer and support for the victims. On the left it was to blame the right.

Since Saturday the constant fact free frenzy has only gotten worse. In a better world, we'd recognize this attack for what it is but because the left immediate politicized it with a wanton disregard for the truth, here we are having to fight back in the nastiest ways imaginable.

In my defense I'll quote Sarah Palin Barack Obama on how to properly conduct a political fight, “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun,”

Posted by: DrewM at 07:54 AM | Comments (270)
Post contains 635 words, total size 4 kb.

See where hate speech has taken us?

A sinister shrine reveals a chilling occult dimension in the mind of the deranged gunman accused of shooting a member of Congress and 19 others.

Hidden within a camouflage tent behind Jared Lee Loughner's home sits an alarming altar with a skull sitting atop a pot filled with shriveled oranges.

A row of ceremonial candles and a bag of potting soil lay nearby, photos reveal.

Ceremonial candles and a bag of potting soil are standard tools of conservative political expression. Vendors sell the shit outta that stuff at Tea Party rallys.

Lots of good links in the headlines regarding the batshit crazy overreach from the MFM and the drumbeaters on the left who leapt past their layers and layers of obviously overworked fact checkers to push their stupid agenda once again.

Some actual reportage would be refreshing.

tip via Tami in the Headline Comments from 2010 (okaaay, I fixed it)

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 07:28 AM | Comments (116)
Post contains 177 words, total size 1 kb.

To all who still watch, listen or read the MSM and insist there is no bias,

Who continue to support them via donating to "Public" broadcasting or purchasing subscriptions,

Who fatuously spout the vile rhetoric the MSM and their ideological brethren feeds you in regards to,

The Tea Party
Sarah Palin
The 2nd Amendment
The Constitution & Bill of Rights in general
Illegal Immigration
Racism in America
Islam as a "Religion of Peace" vis-a-vis the supposed creeping fundamentalism of Christianity and the various insidious plots of "the Jews"
The need to reign in the "heated rhetoric" of just the Right side of the political spectrum
The narrowly targeted definition of "heated rhetoric" or "hate speech"
Every atrocity, every natural disaster, every drought or snowstorm an effect of the evil machinations of Conservatives such as I...

With all due respect, open your damned eyes...!

more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:52 AM | Comments (212)
Post contains 696 words, total size 5 kb.

More ones, zeros and twos.

Gah.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 04:10 AM | Comments (218)
Post contains 12 words, total size 1 kb.

So on to Week #2 of the year...

Things Babies Born in 2011 Will Never Know

At the beginning of every year articles come out designed to make you feel old. So I'd be remiss if I didn't include at least one of them. What's surprising in this one is how many modernish things are already on their way to obsolescence:

CDs: First records, then 8-track, then cassette, then CDs — replacing your music collection used to be an expensive pastime. Now it’s cheap(er) and as close as the nearest Internet connection.

Dial-up Internet: While not everyone is on broadband, it wonÂ’t be long before dial-up Internet goes the way of the plug-in phone.

Talking to one person at a time: Remember when it was rude to be with one person while talking to another on the phone? Kids born today will just assume that youÂ’re supposed to use texting to maintain contact with five or six other people while pretending to pay attention to the person you happen to be physically next to.

One picture to a frame: Such a waste of wall/counter/desk space to have a separate frame around each picture. Eight gigabytes of pictures and/or video in a digital frame encompassing every person you’ve ever met and everything you’ve ever done — now, that’s efficient.

And here are some jobs that 2011 babies probably won't be doing in their lifetimes:

1. Photo Processors
2. Video Store Clerk
3. Bank Tellers
4. Travel Agents
5. Non-Profit Organization Staff
6. School District Employee

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:33 PM | Comments (714)
Post contains 1009 words, total size 10 kb.

This clown, Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, just gave an interview to Megyn Kelly on Fox News where he admitted he had no evidence about the Arizona shooting but then went on to speculate it involved Republican opposition to Democrat legislation, unidentified donors to political issue groups and free speech.

Keep in mind, Dupnik isn't just some guy or some local official...he's the lead investigator in this case. Why in the world is publicly speculating about this? It's political hackery and sheer incompetence of the highest order.

He also talked about how much he misses the America that existed when he was younger. He's in his mid 70s. So he misses things like Puerto Rican nationalists shooting 5 members of the House on the House floor, John and Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King and on and on.

I don't have a link yet but it was quite a performance. He made similar remarks yesterday. Arizona Senator Jon Kyl smacked him around earlier today for yesterday's partisan attack.

Frank J. from IMAO caught the interview as well and this quote from Dupnik.

Just to reiterate, Sheriff Dupnik puts some of the blame of the shooting on "one party blocking another party from bettering this country."

Here's the interview, if you can stomach it.

Below the fold is a post I wrote back in April of this year but never got around to posting about Dupnik and his views on the Arizona immigration law. He talked about it on Countdown with Keith Olbermann (of course). He wasn't impressed by it but he also didn't seem to know what he was talking about. more...

Posted by: DrewM at 11:06 AM | Comments (699)
Post contains 1392 words, total size 9 kb.

KC and Baltimore now, Philly and Packers later.

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 10:53 AM | Comments (576)
Post contains 12 words, total size 1 kb.

And by outraged, I mean totally disinterested.

Via @NathanWurtzel (who you should be following on Twitter, if you aren't already).

I've flagged it as inappropriate for promoting terrorism.

As I said on Twitter...I thought the MFM went all in with their credibility during the '08 campaign for Obama but that was nothing compared to the fact free frenzy we are seeing now.

I've sent a couple of lefty reporters /commentators a scoop but none of them seem interested yet: Army vet put Giffords on a "Target List".

Also note the difference in reaction between the left and MFM complex's reaction to Muslim terror, "We just don't know what could have caused this" to their giddy rush to blame this nut in Arizona on Palin and conservatives.

"The important thing is for everyone not to jump to conclusions," said retired Gen. Wesley Clark on CNN the night of the shootings.

"We cannot jump to conclusions," said CNN's Jane Velez-Mitchell that same evening. "We have to make sure that we do not jump to any conclusions whatsoever."

"I'm on Pentagon chat room," said former CIA operative Robert Baer on CNN, also the night of the shooting. "Right now, there's messages going back and forth, saying do not jump to the conclusion this had anything to do with Islam."

When it comes to Islamic terrorism they are Inspector Clouseau but when the chance to jump on the right comes along, it's like they are Sherlock Holmes, solving the crime and identifying motive in 8 minutes flat.

The left is also forever warning us about a backlash against Muslims but now they are positively whipping one up against conservatives. It's pretty clear who they think is more dangerous.

One other thought...If Palin and the right were so excited about inciting violance like this, shouldn't there be some celebrating that it actually happened? Yet none of the usual suspects like Kos, Ygleias, Olbermann, etc. can point to a single persona on the right who is anything but horrified by this.

I'd submit it's people like Kos and Olbermann, etc who are pretty excited about this attack. Their first reaction was to score political points with the blood of innocents. On the right, the reaction was prayers for the victims and a desire to punish the perpetrator regardless of motive.

Credit where it's due: One voice of reason in the immediate aftermath? Rachel Maddow.

There is nothing to be gained from speculating on the motives and affiliations of AZ shooter w/o facts.

We'll see how long that lasts but it was the right first reaction.

Posted by: DrewM at 10:40 AM | Comments (312)
Post contains 459 words, total size 4 kb.

I guess it's better than "Parental Unit A" and "Parental Unit B".

A statement on the State Department website noted: “These improvements are being made to provide a gender neutral description of a child’s parents and in recognition of different types of families.” The statement didn't note if it was for child applications only.

The State Department said the new passport applications, not yet available to the public, will be available online soon.

Sprague said the decision to remove the traditional parenting names was not an act of political correctness.

...“Changing the term mother and father to the more global term of parent allows many different types of families to be able to go and apply for a passport for their child without feeling like the government doesn’t recognize their family,” said Jennifer Chrisler, executive director of Family Equality Council.

Chrisler recounted the day she and her female partner tried to get her twin sons passports.

“Even though my partner was their legal mother, had adopted them after I gave birth to them, she still had to put her name in the father field, and that is both discriminatory and makes us feel like second-class citizens,” she said.

Let me take the "second-class citizens" part first...tough.

I love and respect the fact that America is tolerant, welcoming and most importantly, protective of a lot of ideas and arrangements that the majority of people don't necessarily agree with. I also think people have the right to organize their private lives the way they see fit (with all the normal caveats about consenting adults, etc.)

Legal or official tolerance or a lack of prohibitions however does not mean that minorities get to force the majority to accept, respect and recognize their choices at the cost of the majority's right to organize civil society.

We've gotten to the point where the self-imposed limits on the majority in some areas has been contorted into actual prohibitions on the ability of the majority to express its legitimate will. At the same time minority groups have asserted there are no restrictions on what they can impose on the majority. Groups like same sex families, and no matter what you see in mass media, "Parent A" and "Parent B" families are tiny, tiny minorities, demand tolerance and respect from the majority but never quite get around to recognizing that perhaps the overwhelming will of their fellow citizens deserves some respect or tolerance.

While I tend to take a more limited view of the role of government in promoting and protecting morality and social codes, it's not because I don't think they aren't necessary or useful but rather because I think that role is best left to non state actors. Social stigmas and preferences are one thing, government prohibitions are something very different.

Government is not about peoples' feelings of self-worth or a way for some to achieve social acceptance. It is simply a tool people use to ensure that the society they create by common consent is maintained in an orderly way. To insist that it be a tool to force the majority to abandon long held arrangements that predate the state is a perversion of the American legal system and our traditions.

That said, I have no problem with people advocating for their position through the democratic process. If they can convince their fellow citizens of the justness of their cause and change the laws, I am fine with that. At the same time, resorting to an end run around the democratic process to courts and bureaucrats when you lose that argument shows that talk of respect and tolerance is simply a one way street.

Yes, yes, I know some will say this is a matter of basic constitutional rights and therefore beyond the will of the majority. To that I say, bull. You simply can not make the argument that either at the time of the founding or the adoption of the 14th Amendment, the framers meant to enshrine gay rights into the Constitution. There's zero evidence of that. If you then argue that the the words as adopted are irrelevant or expansive enough to encompass such rights, then you are a proponent of a living Constitution. In my book, that's about the worst slur there is.

Update: Via Leo Ladenson in the comments, Hillary decides to split the baby (as it were) and keep Mother/Father and add "Parent"

"She has directed that the relevant forms retain to the existing references to 'mother' and 'father' in addition to the designation 'parent,' " Crowley said. He said her decision would ensure that the documents are as inclusive and informative as possible.

Note: I had this post up for like a minute yesterday before the AZ shooting story broke. I took it down because I didn't want it to get lost with all the news that was sure to follow.

Posted by: DrewM at 09:44 AM | Comments (106)
Post contains 849 words, total size 5 kb.

School students refuse to attend dance unless they can simulate sex on the dance floor.

Some students say they didn't want to go to the dance because of the prohibition on grinding, in which partners rub their bodies against each other, with both people usually facing the same direction.

The dance was canceled because too few kids got tickets.

Because what is the point of even having a social event for high school children, unless they can simulate sex on the dance floor.

I feel.

So very old.

Good job, parents. Well done.

Posted by: LauraW at 08:47 AM | Comments (100)
Post contains 123 words, total size 1 kb.